I'm not defensive. I just want people to remember/understand that every single suck-ass option available to the United States, at every juncture of this mess, has been directly caused by a combination of the incompetence of Bush and the evil of Cheney.
Your lack of understanding in the Middle East is yet another on the list of "crap LG just can't get."
This started before Bush and Cheney ever got into office. This started before Clinton and Bush Sr. were in office. This all started in the 80s so to lay blame at Bush isn't accurate at all. We made it a plan to counter Iranian expansion and influence in the region long ago, during the 80s to be exact. We played both sides in the Iran-Iraq war, but gave a lot more support to Iraq at the time. Eventually, peace is achieved and Iran pulls back their regional ambitions to regroup and rebuild their nation. Iraq is actually far better off since it's not a theocracy and hasn't supported terrorism on a major scale like Iran had. Anyway, Saddam doesn't want to pay off the war debt to Kuwait, so they invade. I guess that's an easy way of not having to pay off your loan, take over the bank, but anyway. We put Iraq in position to be the major power in the Middle East by taking Iran out of the picture through our actions in the 1980s.
The world says "no, can't do that" and we have Desert Storm. Which basically puts Iraq on parity with Iran in terms of regional influence and military strength. Saddam goes after the Kurds and Shiites and we now have Southern and Northern Watch which lasts over a decade. And during that time, the focus is on Iraq while Iran is moving behind the scenes in rebuilding its military as well as attempting to expand influence. And funny that even after 2001, we worked with Iran briefly during the initial stages of OEF to help remove the Taliban in Afghanistan. Anyway, 2003 comes along and we finish what we started in 1991. Iran now sees the opportunity to gain more influence in Iraq, especially seeing it has a majority Shiite population, and starts doing things behind the scenes. And we counter the insurgency that was largely fueled by Sunni insurgents being armed by Iran.
Yes, I know this for a fact.
So long term, whether we took Saddam out of power or not doesn't matter as eventually it was going to happen. And Iran would have made a move then. We merely provided the environment for them to flourish in Iraq. I think eventually they would have taken Saddam out themselves and no matter who was next in line for power, there would have been a civil war. The Shiites would have risen up as well as the Kurds and we'd still have Iran attempting to influence things behind the scenes.
So this nonsense that I see from people on here claiming it was "All Bush's fault!" is pure and utter ignorance. The key here isn't Bush or Cheney, it's Iran. It's always been Iran and always will be Iran. And even if we were to change history in Iraq and we never invaded, Iran would
still have been working behind the scenes to undermine the government there and supporting a Shiite uprising. And the mess that would have ensued would have made the civil war in Syria look like a powder puff football game.
So please attempt to educate yourself on the big picture here and stop the "Bush's fault!" nonsense. This was set in motion long before he came into office.